


The Last Stand of Faery

by Copperonthetongue



Category: Merry Gentry - Laurell K Hamilton
Genre: Bravery, Essus was Adorable, Faery History, Goblins, Keough Knifehand, Lesser Fae, M/M, On Dying Well, Rusalka, Sidhe Bedtime Stories, Sneaky Nanny is Sneaky, Sometimes not being the favorite is a GOOD thing, Subversive Storytelling, The War That Was Lost, The reason Essus wasn't nuts, tiny wee sidhe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 01:02:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8690485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Copperonthetongue/pseuds/Copperonthetongue
Summary: What bedtime stories do the Faeries tell their children?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiromori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiromori/gifts).



> The only deaths in the story are people you don't know, and there is a hint of slash...but it's still someone you don't know. So, nothing too objectionable to the wider audience?

The boy that lay in the small bed, with its rich blankets and furs was, at first glance, an ordinary child. Yet, on closer inspection....this was not so. His hair was black as a raven’s wing which was not impossible in a human, but his eyes were triple ringed in shades of gray and far from human, and the bones of his face too perfect to belong to any mortal. He was Sidhe, and it showed in every part of him from the top of his head, to his blanketed feet. The woman who came to tuck him in, bearing a glowing candle ...was not Sidhe, for her skin was a luminescent green, and her hair much like seaweed. Her too-long, webbed fingers were tipped with claws, though one was shrouded in her flowing sleeves...yet there was a gentle look in her gleaming and inhuman golden eyes, and her needle fanged mouth was not cruel as it smiled tenderly at the boy in the bed.

She sat down beside him and set the light aside on his carved wood night table, and the boy beamed up at her trustingly. She had been his nursemaid since his birth, his mother had little time for the raising of him, as Unseelie Queen, so she left it to a lesser fae, which was, perhaps a mistake. Certainly the Great Lady would see it as such herself if she knew what tales Elenwe gave the boy for bedtime stories.

“ Tell me the story again?” the child pled, his voice as sweet as any could wish for. The green woman laughed a little, and her gorgeous voice did not match her inhuman face and form at all.

“Again? “ she teased gently, to which the child replied with a fervent nod.

“ As you wish, My Prince. “ she said, acquiescing gracefully, as she always did. She knew the story was the child’s favorite, and was glad of it, it gave her hope for the future, that he liked it so well.

She began as she always did, with a small, thoughtful hum. “ Let me see if I remember....ah, yes. “ she said, with a sly smile, as he began to protest her delay. 

“ Once, a very long time ago there was a Prince of the Unseelie, he was tall as your people so often are, and golden of hair as the brightest sun, fair of skin as the moon itself. He was beautiful even for a Sidhe, this Prince...and as pure of blood as could be wished by any in either court. His name was Mawgan, and he was Prince of Death and Pain and his hands of power were great and terrible, for these were the days before the wyrdings, before the Sidhe gave up their greatest gifts to keep the peace with Men. “ she said, her voice settling into the familiar rhythm that held the child rapt and utterly enthralled as the tale took shape.

“ Yet though he was pure of blood, and a Prince he took little joy in the court of his birth...and from the time he was a child he trailed at the heels of one whose blood was not so pure, nor half so noble. The name of that Sidhe, was Keough Knifehand; who was a lesser member of the Prince’s Mother’s house. His blood was tainted with that of the Goblin Court....but for all that, the Prince looked on him with more favor than any other. He was half redcap, The Knifehand and was as tall as a sapling tree and twice as fierce as a dragon. He bore the Hand of Blades that would cut anything it touched and would not be mended and he carried a great magic spear, that never missed. First as a child, the Prince sought out the halfblooded Goblin to make of him a friend then as a man that love began to deepen and he won that terrible, fierce heart for his own in the fullness of time. They were never apart, the two of them, for many centuries where one went so was found the other, as shadow follows sunlight. As the Prince grew in power, the two would not be separated and it was known that the Knifehand was the will and swift justice and terrible vengeance of the Prince, ...though it drew the scorn of many. " Her smile turned cutting then, dark and wicked as she looked down at the rapt face of the small boy beside her. " Though always in private, where they believed no one could hear.....least of all Prince Mawgan, or The Knifehand. They were shamed, you see..to have a Prince of the Sidhe so captivated by one they saw as less than they. They did not see the bond between them as it was, built on blood, and love, and pain. They saw only a Pureborn Sidhe, debasing himself with a halfblood, instead of taking a noble bride. “ She paused, watching the flickering candle light in the child’s eyes, giving him time to long for more of the story. There was an art to storytelling, and Elenwe was a master of it.

“ He spent much time in the Goblin Court, with his companion...for though he was fair as a Seelie in form and face, his heart was as fierce as any Goblin, and he found his truest kindred not in the great Darkling Halls of the Unseelie Sithin but instead in the ferocity and brutal honesty of the Goblin Court . ‘Tis said that it is there that his blood yet runs in the veins of many, though here the line is long since dead and gone. “ That much, she knew as truth. She had seen them, in glimpses amongst the rest. Tall, and most bearing their sire or many cases, grandsire’s gilded hair or moonlit skin. Yet theirs was a terrible beauty, the one she had seen the clearest had been sharp of tooth, and sleek of form with eyes the red of blood and four strong arms, each bearing a great axe. Where he went, none stood long before him and he was greatly feared amongst his people despite his Sidhe face and coloring.

“Many did not like him, for as time passed he looked and saw that men grew in strength and Faery waned. He spoke of war, he spoke of turning the tide before it was too late...yet none listened and so he went out into the mortal realm, to see what he could see. “ She paused then, for this part was near and dear to her, and she continued after a moment with a bitter smile.

“He went, and he looked, and he saw that those of us who could not hide our lack of humanity were being driven out, and slaughtered by men. Our sacred places despoiled, our homes burnt, our bogs and fens drained, all to make way for Men to take what was not theirs. For they could not bear to share the world with us who they feared because they could not control. “ She shook her head, and hid her face behind her seaweed hair that the child could not see her bare her needle teeth in bitter, helpless rage.

“ Prince Mawgan saw all this, and said... ‘ These are my people too, for is magic not all of a kind? Does the Dark Court not say that all of Faery is of value, and beautiful? Yet they die, and we do nothing. ‘ and yet still they did not listen. The Noble Lords of the Sidhe, the Kings and Queens. For we were not Sidhe, those of us that suffered then. Surely such things could never happen to them, those noble lords and ladies. “ She laughed then, and peered out at the boy, who knew now in the fullness of time...that such was not so. Sidhe flesh parted as easily for the cold iron of men as did that of the Lesser Fae.

“ Mawgan was neither gentle, nor kind, nor even good....but still he called for those that would heed him. They came, in twos and threes from both courts, though he was an Unseelie Prince. They numbered only twelve in all, the Sidhe Lords and Ladies who rode out that day, and of them all only Prince Mawgan’s blood ran pure. The Knifehand rode at his side, and the Goblins answered the call to battle, those that chose to do so; the Redcaps came of course, one and all to dip their caps in mortal blood, and for the joy of battle. All of those who would not bear to be driven out, like nightmares before the dawn, massed to stand against the might of the Kings of Men. “ She smiled, in fierce memory, for she had been young then, and answered the call herself, ran on swift foot, sword in hand beside the rest at the human horde, at the Last Stand of Faery.

“ It was the first time that Goblin Kind stood with Sidhe on equal terms, that day. It was also the last. “ her voice softened then, to make the child listen closer. “ How he shone in the sun, so proud, so fierce...and we knew him for our own, and he knew us and did not turn away...not from fang or claw, nor twisted form or cruel nature. We were all of us Faery, and beautiful. “ she gritted her teeth and looked at the boy, as if to will him to understand. “ To him, we were worth saving. “

“ He lifted his great sword, and so we charged. The mortal army was so vast...yet there was hope in him, always hope...he glowed with it, and so did we with him. He called the dead to rise for him, and how he fought for us...he was glory in battle Our Prince, and the Knifehand felled hundreds at his side. Those we cut down rose again to battle beside us, under the sway of his gift. Yet as the sun rose his power to call the dead did wane, for it was a thing of the twilight and shadow, and great as he was, he could not hold it in the mid-day sun. More and more it was the hand of Pain he used, and that he could not use for long...for like many gifts it was double edged, and cut him too with it’s use. So it was down to steel, then...and the Knifehand was parted from him in the tide of the battle. “ She remembered it so clearly, the shine of his golden hair in the afternoon sun, the spatter of blood on the black of his armor and the snarl on his fair face as he drove the humans back and back and back again. She had been sure that they would win the day, he was so fierce even left without his magic and relying on sword alone.

“ One by one, the Sidhe began to fall and with them the first trickle of the Lesser Fae fled, for if Sidhe could fall how could they stand?...yet still the Prince and the Knifehand held the line, even as the lesser of us drew away to lick our wounds. So it was that Prince Mawgan was weary from battle and the use of his magic ..and a human bowman was blessed with luck and we; to our eternal shame were blessed with none. An arrow took Our Prince in the throat, and distracted him, and they swarmed him like ants on a felled bird, “ she said softly. “ It took many to slay him, for he was true Sidhe, and strong even for one of those yet eventually they held him down and one amongst them drove cold iron into his eye, and he was still at last. “ She looked at the child, whose small face was full of grief and offended rage on behalf of the long-dead prince.

“ They had drawn the Knifehand from his side, yet as the cry went up that the Prince was dead he butchered his way through them, like nothing any of us had ever seen. He parted them like water before the prow of a boat and drove them back from Prince Mawgan’s body, snarling like a rabid thing as we began to scatter. Our Prince was dead...and our hope died with him. “ She was shamed still, though she had not fled from fear. She had been sore wounded and had lain helpless in her own blood to heal, a frightened watcher of what unfolded.

“ The Knifehand took him up in his arms, and carried him away from the field, and the Redcaps went with them...to ward their passing. The rest has now passed into hearsay and myth. “ She waited, to let the story become truly a story in the mind of the child...caution always, was the watchword with the lesser fae . “ It is said that Keough Knifehand cut the heart from the Prince’s body and placed it in a golden chest, and secreted it in the heart of the Goblin Court...for he could not bear not to have it always, and that it yet beats for him, when he holds it in his hands. “ She knew that the child liked that part the best, yet she continued on, for the rest was still important to the tale.

“ The rest of his body was taken by the Lesser Fae, and brought to a secret place to be kept... for he was ours, you see and had died for us, and we would not give him up. The greatest of us were said to have used their magic to preserve him and it is said that somewhere...he lies still, as beautiful in death as in life, his missing eye replaced by a great, golden diamond and a King’s crown upon his head, though he never wore it in life.“ She knew this to be true, though she would not admit it, even to this child...for the Sidhe now hungered for the return of what they considered theirs, and none of the Lesser Fae would suffer to return him, who all the courts had scorned in life. He had died with them, his noble blood shed alongside their own...and the Sidhe could not have him back.

“ That was the last time that Faery defied the will of Men, and the last that all of us, Seelie, Unseelie, great and small stood togeather, and in the fullness of time...Mawgan’s fears were proven right, as all of us were driven further and further from the world, and we began to wane..including the mighty Sidhe. Who had thought it could never be so for them. So it was, that he lived, and so it was that he died...but his memory lives always in the lesser courts, and his blood flows in the Goblin Kin, and Keough Knifehand still walks...though few are brave enough to seek him now, even for tales of the Prince. “ She looked down again, and saw the child’s eyes were drooping.

“ Go to sleep, Essus, “ she said, as she smoothed his hair with a single clawed hand The other ended in a stump, lost that day in the battle, and unable to regrow.

“ Can I meet him someday, ‘Lenwe, Keough Knifehand?” the boy said sleepily, which made her smile and laugh quietly.

“ Perhaps, My Prince....if you are very brave, and very strong. You will have to go to the Goblin Court, for he comes here no more, “ she said amusedly.

“ I will, you’ll see. When I’m grown, I’ll go and I shall meet him, and maybe he will tell me about the Prince, and be my friend too, “ the boy mumbled, which made her hide behind her hair again, to conceal her smile.

“ Maybe so,...but you have much growing left to do, and that begins with sleeping, “ she said as she blew out the candle. He grumbled, as boys were wont to do... but shut his eyes and rolled over to sleep.

“ Goodnight, Essus, “ she whispered, as she slipped from the room...and for a moment her wrist stump ached, and her remaining hand clenched hard enough that her claws sent blood pattering on the hungry stone of the sithin floor, and her heart glowed again with the faintest ember of hope. All was not lost, this Prince too would see them for what they were, this Prince would grow, and rise and lead them...and Faery would not fade away. There was power still in stories, and in memory...for another Unseelie Prince looked to the Goblin Court, not in disgust, but in hope and at the lesser fae not in disdain but in kindness.

The Fairy King, as they had so mockingly named Mawgan in death at the Courts, as the Sidhe feasted and ignored what passed beyond the Sithin walls, would never be forgotten...not so long as a single one of the Lesser Fae kept faith. He was theirs, and they were his...and one day, they would belong to Essus too.


End file.
